Office 365, Teams and not using Exchange

[localzuk]

We are a Google school - all of our emails are handled by Google Workspace, and staff use Gmail to view them. However, we occasionally have a need to use Microsoft Teams (for example, OFSTED require its use during their remote monitoring inspections). We do also have an Office 365 tenancy set up, but as Google handles the email, we don't use Exchange. This is where the problem arises. When staff use Teams, they aren't receiving invitations. The meetings are added to their Office 365 calendar, but they just don't get anything in their Gmail account.

 

Is there a way of making Teams use actual email, instead of whatever it is doing in the background which ignores the way our MX records are set up?

[chaplic]

You're obviously pushing against the tide a little as it's not exactly a scenario MS have envisaged

 

I assume you mean people are clicking on the calendar icon then new meeting? This is being driven out of exchange which means the user has a mailbox in exchange so you've probably got other issues with mail not being read as if it can exchange will always deliver mail internally if there's an internal recipient

 

I can only suggest as a test in exchange forwarding all email to gmail using a different domain address (e.g. [email protected] > [email protected] ), but be aware the calendar in teams won't be updated with any gmail booked meetings

[localzuk]

The problem is that both Google Workspace and Office 365 use the same fields in Active Directory to handle what the user's email address is. So, to do your suggestion @chaplic, I'd need them to have a different email address in Office 365.

[chaplic]

If you don't register a domain in O365 but project an object to it with that and email address from that domain, it's won't include that email address in O365

 

For extra clean-ness you could also modify Azure AD Connect to filter out such domains.

[Primus]

Nice to see Ofsted are platform agnostic.

 

Is it in their published documentation that Teams has to be used?

[localzuk]

OK, little confused tbh.

 

We already have Office 365 and Google Workspaces set up, both with the same domains. Email addresses are specified in the mail field in Active Directory, aliases in the usual spot. Because we temporarily used Office 365 before switching to Office, everything is set up there as you'd expect.

 

What should I disable? What should I remove? The domain is already registered in Office 365 - that's how they can log in to it. I also want them to continue to be able to log in to Office 365 with the same email/password combo (our entire idea is that they have one username/email/account that works everywhere).

[chaplic]

I think you're missing my key point; for the calendar to work in teams you must have an exchange mailbox. This is where meeting invites are being delivered

 

A meeting invite is just a special email. If you want this in Gmail you need to have a way to get it to gmail.

 

We can autoforward from exchange to google, but the address we configure for autoforward must not exist on an exchange mailbox

 

In AD, proxyAddresses is the attribute that holds your email addresses, if this is blank the UPN field is used (in o365 world)

 

What I'm proposing is you register an additional domain in gmail and give everyone that additional email address. Don't tell anyone as they won't use it. Do not register the additional domain in O365 then it won't appear in the o365 directory even if it's in AD.

 

In O365 world you setup forwarding of each mailbox to the additional address

 

 

So:

 

O365 I have address/ login name of

 

[email protected]

autoforwarding to

[email protected]

 

 

in gmail I have email addresses

[email protected]

[email protected]

 

Then we have to sort out SPF and ensuring gmail doesnt spam bin the forwarded mails, but one thing at a time!

[localzuk]

Oh! Now that would be MUCH simpler. And less intrusive to users. Might try that out.